scholarly journals Teaching with Lecture or Debate? Testing the Effectiveness of Traditional versus Active Learning Methods of Instruction

2008 ◽  
Vol 41 (03) ◽  
pp. 603-607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariya Y. Omelicheva ◽  
Olga Avdeyeva

Lecture is, arguably, the oldest known instructional technique used in the university setting. Since it was first employed in Plato's Academy, lecture has become an indispensable part of teaching favored across the college and university curriculum. Recently, this time-honored method of instruction has come under attack for its presumed inability to foster higher order cognitive and attitudinal goals (Cashin 1985; Day 1980; Frederick 1999; Renner 1993). Critics of traditional lecture-based formats call for their replacement with active learning approaches that provide students with an opportunity to meaningfully talk, interact, write, read, and reflect on the content, ideas, and issues of an academic subject (Meyers and Jones 1993, 6).

Author(s):  
Genevieve Jones-Edman ◽  
Karlene Patricia Robinson

Assessing the performance of information literacy (IL) students can be a daunting task for librarians globally. Most IL sessions are taught in 1 to 2 hours where any meaningful assessments are difficult to achieve. This research demonstrated how this feat was achieved in an active learning environment through the use of Google Forms. This mixed method study shows how this was effectively achieved to test both lower and higher order skills in a 2 hour session to one hundred and seventy-two foundation writing course students.The research tested a rarely examined feature of Google Forms which is the tool’s effectiveness in enabling comprehensive assessment, facilitating active learning, and identifying instructional errors in an IL instruction session. The findings show that Google Forms can be used to teach and administer a quiz using both multiple-choice as well as open-ended questions to assess both low and higher order learning skills in IL. Students were able to actively respond to questions while they were being taught, the data gathered and analyzed and used to inform future library instruction. It also showed that Google Forms are useful not simply to administer multiple-choice quizzes at the end of teaching but can be used in executing real-time assessment and support active learning. Because Google Forms support the easy creation of charts and downloading/exporting of statistics, results of assessments can be shared among librarians, faculty, and students to motivate and encourage digital pedagogy. It allows for greater collaboration with faculty in the cooperative teaching of students in single sessions where there is usually difficulty in having dialogue with faculty once a session ends. This case study is based on a limited number of students; thus, the findings of this research may not be generalized but the methodology and some skills in teaching the concepts encountered by librarians may be replicated.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Chosang Tendhar ◽  
Kusum Singh ◽  
Brett D. Jones

Because there are many positive effects of active learning approaches on students’ motivation and achievement, some authors have recommended that these approaches be widely implemented. A research-intensive university located in the Mid-Atlantic US was interested in adopting this instructional technique, and therefore, experimented with it. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to compare and contrast the effects of an active learning approach on the motivation of students in a treatment and control group. The results of multiple independent sample t-tests showed that there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups on several motivation constructs. We provide explanations for the lack of significant differences, as well as discuss limitations and future research.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. ar50
Author(s):  
Karen S. McNeal ◽  
Min Zhong ◽  
Nick A. Soltis ◽  
Lindsay Doukopoulos ◽  
Elijah T. Johnson ◽  
...  

Skin biosensors were used to measure student engagement in an introductory biology classroom. One section of the class was taught with active-learning approaches, the other with traditional lecture. Results from galvanic skin response devices indicated students in the active-learning classroom were more engaged than those in the traditional lecture.


Author(s):  
Kirk Johnson ◽  
Heather Garrido ◽  
Alyssa Gordon ◽  
M. G. Remitera-Huavas ◽  
Artemia Perez ◽  
...  

Our mission at educators, teachers, professors, and yes, even guides and facilitators on the journey of knowledge and learning for students in higher education must be to strive each and every day to foster an environment within the classroom and even beyond its walls that seeks to empower the learners to take charge of their own learning and to endeavor to find approaches and strategies that most effectively contribute to the outcomes of stated learning objectives. In this chapter, the authors analyze five years of experience within the classroom setting in upper level sociology courses at the University of Guam. The experience centers around strategies and approaches in three broad areas of learner-centered pedagogy that include flipping the classroom, collaborative, and active learning approaches.


2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 9-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mireille Djenno ◽  
Glenda M. Insua ◽  
Annie Pho

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the use of Google Forms in the university library instruction classroom. Librarians at the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) began using Google Forms as a way of increasing active learning and as an instrument of formative assessment. The paper describes the information literacy context at the UIC and gives examples of best practices for using Google Forms in library instruction. Design/methodology/approach – The authors collaborated with other instruction librarians at their institution to develop Google Forms for use in library instruction sessions and used them primarily in sessions geared toward first-year students. Findings – Google Forms provides an easy and inexpensive way to incorporate both active learning and assessment in library instruction sessions. Students and faculty were receptive to their use in the library classroom. These early findings will be incorporated into the longer assessment study by the authors, currently underway. Originality/value – While Google Forms has heretofore been used in primary and secondary school settings, it is only now being more widely adopted for use by instruction librarians at the university level. This paper will be of value to those who wish to use Google Forms in library instruction in college and university settings, among others.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 193
Author(s):  
Cathie M. Fornssler

Universities want to encourage faculty to keep curricula up-to-date and innovative, yet faculty dread the prospect of arguing about course and program changes with college and university curriculum committees – which are overworked and overwhelmed with detail. The Course Challenge Procedure (CCP) at the University of Saskatchewan is a collegial yet autonomous way for peer review and approval of new courses, and pre-requisite and program changes. It encourages more faculty members to be informed about curricular changes in other units, yet also allows for faster approval. The CCP can be implemented as a web-based, email, or paper distribution system, and used as the basis for integrated curriculum approval processes at the department, college, and university level.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. LoPresto ◽  
Timothy F. Slater

Although traditional lectures are still the dominant form of undergraduate instruction, there have been relatively few studies comparing various learner-centered and active learning teaching strategies to one another in order to guide professors in making informed instructional decisions. To study the impact of different active learning approaches, pre-test to posttest learning gains for students receiving instruction on introductory astronomy solar system topics through a combination of collaborative learning activities and formative assessment-driven activities were compared to the gains of students being taught the same topics by traditional lectures only. After traditional lectures, students improved from a pre-test score of 42% (n=144) to 49% (n=49). After lecture tutorials and classroom voting response systems improvement was to 73% (n=72) Using a multiple-group comparison approach, similar earning gains were also observed when using visual-assessment and tutorial activities. Moreover, data from a Likert-style attitude survey of 264 undergraduates showed that, although they did not report a clear preference for one instructional mode over the other, the majority of students believed that the active and collaborative nature of the activities helped them learn.  The results of this study add weight to the notion that most modern pedagogies are superior to traditional lecture, and that although the relative impacts of particular pedagogies are mostly indistinguishable from one another, they are all are better than traditional lecture alone.


2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-22
Author(s):  
Prakash Arumugam

All academic institutions subscribe to systems and methods that are deemed appropriate for the delivery of courses or programmes to the general masses. Some emphasise on physical delivery as in conventional institutions. Some employ a blended approach as in distance learning institutions. In modern times, we see conventional institutions making use of a mixture of conventional face-to-face and modern e-learning approaches in delivering programmes. In the 1960s, an experimental method of instruction was introduced by Fred Keller. It was aptly named Keller's Personalised System of Instruction (PSI) and it stayed on the educational radar right through the 70s and 80s. This non-traditional method of instruction, which dominated colleges and universities, was regarded as superior to conventional methods. It was originally used in a conventional education setting or face-to-face teaching environment. Unfortunately, its popularity slowly waned in subsequent decades. The original PSI method contained five defining features and these are applied, inadvertently or otherwise, by distance education institutions in their delivery of courses. The purpose of this study is to examine the exploitation of PSI in the delivery of courses at Wawasan Open University (WOU). To facilitate the investigation, the elementary level Microeconomics course was selected. The study reveals that PSI principles, in general, are applied in WOU with twists that fit into institutional and cultural norms, bearing in mind the attention the university pays to quality.


Author(s):  
Negar M. Harandi ◽  
Carol P. Jaeger ◽  
Philip D. Loewen

In this paper the planning, implementation, and analysis of active learning techniques introduced into a new integrated course designed for second-year Biomedical Engineering students at the University of British Columbia are presented. The course included foundation material on circuit analysis, electromagnetics, and vector calculus. The course was delivered using a blended learning format, incorporating video content, traditional lecture time, and team based in-class problem solving. In general the problem solving activities were well received, but several adjustments were necessary during the term to optimize the effectiveness of the team-based activities. Student feedback and course outcomes are presented and discussed in the paper.  


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document